Why it works: Cheese and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
Cheese Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
Make the dough
Mix flour, melted lard, salt, and grated cheese; add water to moisten.
Roll out the dough and cut into desired shapes.
Fill and assemble
For the filling, mix grated cheese and egg yolk.
Place a heaping teaspoon of filling in the center of each dough piece.
Sprinkle with paprika and add bits of butter.
Moisten the edges of the crust, cover with another piece of dough, and press edges together.
Bake
Bake until browned.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
The flavor team
The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.
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Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Cheese + eggtop 28% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,253 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Flour
- Forms the structure of the dough that holds the filling.
- Melted lard
- Adds fat that makes the crust tender and short.
- Grated cheese
- Gives flavor and richness to both the dough and the filling.
- Egg yolk
- Binds the filling and adds richness that helps it set and brown.
- Butter
- Adds fat that melts during baking, moistening the filling and aiding browning.
The step that matters
Pressing the edges together. If the edges are not moistened and sealed well, the filling can leak out during baking and the pastry may open or split. Moistening the edge helps the two dough pieces stick together.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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